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19 Are Accused of Running Auto Insurance Fraud Ring

Calling to mind images of ruthless personal injury lawyers chasing ambulances and waving neck braces, law enforcement officials announced yesterday that they had foiled a complex automobile insurance fraud ring in Queens and Nassau County.

The participants, the authorities charged, used illegal methods to find victims of minor accidents and then pressed them to falsify or exaggerate injuries in order to file bogus insurance claims.

The officials arrested 19 people and charged them with conspiring to defraud several insurance companies, including Geico, Allstate and Travelers.

The arrests were a result of an investigation conducted by the New York State attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, and several law enforcement agencies. The 19 people, including local lawyers, insurance brokers and operators of medical clinics, were charged with conspiracy to commit insurance fraud. The charge carries a maximum penalty of four years in prison.

Among those charged were several people the authorities say acted as middlemen, including retired police officers, who were paid by lawyers to find accident victims.

The authorities say the middlemen paid insurance brokers to obtain the names of clients who had recently reported automobile accidents. According to the charges, the middlemen, posing as hospital officials, called the victims and directed them to seek medical care at clinics run by their co-conspirators, and also steered the victims to specific personal injury lawyers, who in turn paid the middlemen for the ''referral.''

Accident victims who felt that their injuries no longer required medical treatment were urged to continue, to keep their claims alive, the authorities said.

''The only way you can make money is if you prove you are injured,'' John Fernandez, a manager of a medical clinic, said to one reluctant accident victim in an April 3 cellphone conversation that was recorded by detectives, according to a complaint filed in Nassau County Criminal Court.

The complaint details another recorded phone conversation in which Robert Fernandez, John Fernandez's brother and partner at the clinic, told a woman who had been in a minor accident that insurers would pay her ''a big amount of money'' for her pain and suffering.

The Fernandezes' lawyer, Ronald J. Aiello, said yesterday that the brothers were innocent and that they denied saying these things.

''They are young businessmen and absolutely deny any involvement with this indictment,'' Mr. Aiello said. ''They have no criminal record and are surprised and shocked by the charges.''

Three of the 19 people charged are lawyers. Benjamin Brafman, who is representing one of the lawyers, Michael Weinreb, said Mr. Weinreb was innocent.

''When the investigation is complete,'' Mr. Brafman said, ''it will be apparent that he did not personally violate any law, nor did he conspire to violate any law.''